At first, members of Sic Alps sound like a few intoxicated fellows who have stumbled into a junk shop where they merrily bang away on cheap, broken instruments, then record their output on antiquated equipment.

But listen more closely -- and more than once. It’s pretty clear that something very interesting is going on here.

With some exceptions, the singles and albums released early-on by the Bay Area group, now a trio, tended to be noisy, difficult and experimental. You might say their songs were loose on song structure and shy of catchy hooks. The recordings were ramshackle, no-frills, fuzzy affairs that leaned heavily on guitar (strummed acoustic and distorted, over-blown electric) and drums all of which played out behind singer Mike Donovan’s sleepy-to-wheezy vocal delivery. (In addition to Donovan, who also plays guitar, the band features drummer Matt Hartman, and now, from Comets on Fire, Noel Von Harmonson on an Echoplex, an old tape-driven echo device.)

But Sic Alps’ third full-length offering, “Napa Asylum,” with 22 songs stretched over 45 minutes, shows immense growth. It is the band’s most well conceived and compelling yet.

Melding and mixing elements of ‘60s garage, folk and psychedelic rock with contemporary indie-rock, avant-pop aesthetics, this group can evoke warped slices of such visionaries as Pink Floyd mastermind Syd Barrett, Moby Grape’s Skip Spence and T. Rex’s Marc Bolan, as well as the woozy haze of Thee Oh Sees, The Grifters and Kurt Vile.

A head’s up: About halfway through, you’ll hear a string of songs that are rather aimless and formless. But they’re blessedly short; in fact, brief enough to be bizarrely amusing rather than annoying —not unlike intermittent pieces by early Guided by Voices.

With “Wasted At Church” the disc springs back and rides out in gloriously damaged rock fashion. It’s the kind of unhinged, slightly demented music that some might wish Sic Alps would stick to, in that it recalls the Rolling Stones or early Replacements (whose singer Paul Westerberg, Donovan occasionally recalls).

Granted, the intentionally trashy fidelity, occasional harsh abrasion and unfinished shambling isn’t for everyone. But given time, you’ll find this rough-and-tumble approach is what elevates Sic Alps above a goodly number of the indie bands that have chosen to play it safe by letting others lead.